Matching Items (25)
Description
Climate change has the potential to affect vegetation via changes in temperature and precipitation. In the semi-arid southwestern United States, heightened temperatures will likely lead to accelerated groundwater pumping to meet human needs, and altered storm patterns may lead to changes in flood regimes. All of these hydrologic changes have the potential to alter riparian vegetation. This research, consisting of two papers, examines relationships between hydrology and riparian vegetation along the Verde River in central Arizona, from applied and theoretical perspectives. One paper investigates how dominance of tree and shrub species and cover of certain functional groups change along hydrologic gradients. The other paper uses the Verde River flora along with that river's flood and moisture gradients to answer the question of whether functional groups can be defined universally. Drying of the Verde River would lead to a shift from cottonwood-willow streamside forest to more drought adapted desert willow or saltcedar, a decline in streamside marsh species, and decreased species richness. Effects drying will have on one dominant forest tree, velvet ash, is unclear. Increase in the frequency of large floods would potentially increase forest density and decrease average tree age and diameter. Correlations between functional traits of Verde River plants and hydrologic gradients are consistent with "leaf economics," or the axis of resource capture, use, and release, as the primary strategic trade-off for plants. This corresponds to the competitor-stress tolerator gradient in Grime's life history strategy theory. Plant height was also a strong indicator of hydrologic condition, though it is not clear from the literature if plant height is independent enough of leaf characteristics on a global scale to be considered a second axis. Though the ecohydrologic relationships are approached from different perspectives, the results of the two papers are consistent if interpreted together. The species that are currently dominant in the near-channel Verde River floodplain are tall, broad-leaf trees, and the species that are predicted to become more dominant in the case of the river drying are shorter trees or shrubs with smaller leaves. These results have implications for river and water management, as well as theoretical ecology.
ContributorsHazelton, Andrea Florence (Author) / Stromberg, Juliet C. (Thesis advisor) / Schmeeckle, Mark W (Committee member) / Franklin, Janet (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft missions provide new data for investigating the youngest impact craters on Mercury and the Moon, along with lunar volcanic end-members: ancient silicic and young basaltic volcanism. The LRO Wide Angle Camera (WAC) and Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) in-flight absolute radiometric calibration used ground-based Robotic Lunar Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope data as standards. In-flight radiometric calibration is a small aspect of the entire calibration process but an important improvement upon the pre-flight measurements. Calibrated reflectance data are essential for comparing images from LRO to missions like MESSENGER, thus enabling science through engineering. Relative regolith optical maturation rates on Mercury and the Moon are estimated by comparing young impact crater densities and impact ejecta reflectance, thus empirically testing previous models of faster rates for Mercury relative to the Moon. Regolith maturation due to micrometeorite impacts and solar wind sputtering modies UV-VIS-NIR surface spectra, therefore understanding maturation rates is critical for interpreting remote sensing data from airless bodies. Results determined the regolith optical maturation rate on Mercury is 2 to 4 times faster than on the Moon. The Gruithuisen Domes, three lunar silicic volcanoes, represent relatively rare lunar lithologies possibly similar to rock fragments found in the Apollo sample collection. Lunar nonmare silicic volcanism has implications for lunar magmatic evolution. I estimated a rhyolitic composition using morphologic comparisons of the Gruithuisen Domes, measured from NAC 2-meter-per-pixel digital topographic models (DTMs), with terrestrial silicic dome morphologies and laboratory models of viscoplastic dome growth. Small, morphologically sharp irregular mare patches (IMPs) provide evidence for recent lunar volcanism widely distributed across the nearside lunar maria, which has implications for long-lived nearside magmatism. I identified 75 IMPs (100-5000 meters in dimension) in NAC images and DTMs, and determined stratigraphic relationships between units common to all IMPs. Crater counts give model ages from 18-58 Ma, and morphologic comparisons with young lunar features provided an additional age constraint of <100 Ma. The IMPs formed as low-volume basaltic eruptions significantly later than previous evidence of lunar mare basalt volcanism's end (1-1.2 Ga).
ContributorsBraden, Sarah E (Author) / Robinson, Mark S (Thesis advisor) / Bell, James F. (Committee member) / Christensen, Philip R. (Committee member) / Clarke, Amanda B (Committee member) / Lawrence, Samuel J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Impact craters are ubiquitous throughout the Solar System, formed by one of the principal processes responsible for surface modification of terrestrial planets and solid bodies (i.e., asteroids, icy moons). The impact cratering process is well studied, particularly on the Moon and Mercury, where the results remain uncomplicated by atmospheric effects, plate tectonics, or interactions with water and ices. Crater measurements, used to determine relative and absolute ages for geologic units by relating the cumulative crater frequency per unit area to radiometrically-determined ages from returned samples, are sensitive to the solar incidence angle of images used for counts. Earlier work is quantitatively improved by investigating this important effect and showing that absolute model ages are most accurately determined using images with incidence angles between 65° and 80°, and equilibrium crater diameter estimates are most accurate at ~80° incidence angle. A statistical method is developed using crater size-frequencies to distinguish lunar mare age units in the absence of spectral differences. Applied to the Moon, the resulting areal crater densities confidently identify expansive units with >300–500 my age differences, distinguish non-obvious secondaries, and determine that an area >1×104 km2 provides statistically robust crater measurements. This areal crater density method is also applied to the spectrally-homogeneous volcanic northern smooth plains (NSP) on Mercury. Although crater counts and observations of embayed craters indicate that the NSP experienced at least two resurfacing episodes, no observable age units are observed using areal crater density measurements, so smooth plains emplacement occurred over a relatively short timescale (<500 my). For the first time, the distribution of impact melt on Mercury and the Moon are compared at high resolution. Mercurian craters with diameters ≥30 km have a greater areal extent of interior melt deposits than similarly sized lunar craters, a result consistent with melt-generation model predictions. The effects of shaking on compositional sorting within a granular regolith are experimentally tested, demonstrating the possibility of mechanical segregation of particles in the lunar regolith. These results provide at least one explanation toward understanding the inconsistencies between lunar remote sensing datasets and are important for future spacecraft sample return missions.
ContributorsOstrach, Lillian Rose (Author) / Robinson, Mark S (Thesis advisor) / Bell Iii, James F (Committee member) / Christensen, Philip R. (Committee member) / Clarke, Amanda B (Committee member) / Garnero, Edward J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
River and riparian areas are important foraging habitat for insectivorous bats. Numerous studies have shown that aquatic insects provide an important trophic resource to terrestrial consumers, including bats, and are key in regulating population size and species interactions in terrestrial food webs. Yet these studies have generally ignored how structural characteristics of the riverine landscape influence trophic resource availability or how terrestrial consumers respond to ensuing spatial and temporal patterns of trophic resources. Moreover, few studies have examined linkages between a stream's hydrologic regime and the timing and magnitude of aquatic insect availability. The main objective of my dissertation is to understand the causes of bat distributions in space and time. Specifically, I examine how trophic resource availability, structural components of riverine landscapes (channel confinement and riparian vegetation structure), and hydrologic regimes (flow permanence and timing of floods) mediate spatial and temporal patterns in bat activity. First, I show that river channel confinement determines bat activity along a river's longitudinal axis (directly above the river), while trophic resources appear to have stronger effects across a river's lateral (with distance from the river) axis. Second, I show that flow intermittency affects bat foraging activity indirectly via its effects on trophic resource availability. Seasonal river drying appears to have complex effects on bat foraging activity, initially causing imperfect tracking by consumers of localized concentrations of resources but later resulting in disappearance of both insects and bats after complete river drying. Third, I show that resource tracking by bats varies among streams with contrasting patterns of trophic resource availability and this variation appears to be in response to differences in the timing of aquatic insect emergence, duration and magnitude of emergence, and adult body size of emergent aquatic insects. Finally, I show that aquatic insects directly influence bat activity along a desert stream and that riparian vegetation composition affects bat activity, but only indirectly, via effects on aquatic insect availability. Overall, my results show river channel confinement, riparian vegetation structure, flow permanence, and the timing of floods influence spatial and temporal patterns in bat distributions; but these effects are indirect by influencing the ability of bats to track trophic resources in space and time.
ContributorsHagen, Elizabeth M (Author) / Sabo, John L (Thesis advisor) / Fisher, Stuart G. (Committee member) / Grimm, Nancy (Committee member) / Schmeeckle, Mark W (Committee member) / Stromberg, Juliet C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
This study has the objective to better constrain the role played by thermal erosion by turbulent lava in the formation of large channels on Mars and the Moon. On Mars, a rigorous one-dimensional model was used to test whether lava might have excavated the Athabasca Valles outflow channel. Calculated erosion depths are much lower than the measured depths of the channel, and suggest a limited role played by thermal erosion in excavating it. On the Moon, the investigation focused on the outer and inner sinuous rilles of Vallis Schröteri. At this site, erosional features cannot be explained by one- and two-dimensional models. The first 3-D model of thermal erosion by turbulent lava on the Moon was created to relate the spatial distribution of erosion rates over the bed and banks of a channel with changes in fluid- and thermodynamic parameters. The turbulence model chosen for each steady-state simulation is the Shear Stress Transport (SST) k-ω model and OpenFOAM is the Computational Fluid Dynamics software used. At the 150-km-long, 4-km-wide, and up-to 700-m-deep outer rille, I aimed to determine maximum erosion rates at/near the lava source and rille segments 1-km-long and 4-km-wide were chosen for the simulations. By adopting the obtained maximum erosion rates of 1 m/day, lava might have taken ~2 years to excavate the 700-m-deep depression. These fast erosion rates were unlikely maintained downstream of the lava source unless lava flowed in a tube. Besides, observational evidence suggests that tectonics and constructional processes likely contributed to rille development. On these grounds, thermal or thermo-mechanical erosion might have contributed to rille formation at a later stage. At the Vallis Schröteri inner rille, 1-km-long and 160-m-wide meandering channels were chosen. In one scenario, lava loses heat by radiation, in the other flows in a tube. Using the calculated (and conservative) erosion rate of 50 cm/day, it would have taken ~6 months for the 90-m deep inner rille to be excavated. A mechanism of secondary flow circulation analogous to that found in meandering rivers potentially explains meander generation. At each bend, downstream and cross-stream velocity variations lead to local temperature/ erosion enhancements.
ContributorsCataldo, Vincenzo (Author) / Williams, David A (Thesis advisor) / Clarke, Amanda B (Thesis advisor) / Schmeeckle, Mark W (Committee member) / Robinson, Mark S (Committee member) / Burt, Donald M (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Planetary mineralogy provides important clues about a planet’s geologic history, specifically how the planet first solidified and what geological processes have taken place since. I used spectral and composition data from the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover to study some of the most recent geologic events on Mars. I also used modeled mineralogy of hypothetical exoplanets to understand the initial crystallization of exoplanets. Orbital data of Mt. Sharp, a ~5 km tall mound of sedimentary material, in Gale crater suggests that minerals associated with liquid water are present. These minerals, such as hydrated Mg-sulfates that are left behind as water evaporates, likely represent the beginning of Mars’ transition from a warm wet planet to the cold dry planet it is today.To understand how the mineralogy of Mt. Sharp changed, I used data from the Mastcam instrument on Curiosity to collect visible to near-infrared spectra of rocks from Vera Rubin Ridge and the Carolyn Shoemaker formation. Additionally, I collected laboratory spectra of powered binary mineral mixtures to understand how common minerals such as plagioclase, pyroxene, and hematite might obscure the spectral features of phyllosilicates and Mg-sulfates. Lastly, to better understanding Mars’ mineralogy, I analyzed numerous mixtures with Mg-sulfates in a nitrogen filled glovebox to better represent some of the environmental conditions of present-day Mars.
Minerals such as phyllosilicates and Mg-sulfates, often referred to as secondary minerals, are only found on planets that have experienced alteration since the planet first solidified. The current level of understanding of Martian mineralogy has only been obtained after decades of sending numerous orbital and landed missions with intricate science instruments. But there is not this level of understanding for all planets, and especially not for planets outside of the solar system. Using modeled mineralogy, I deciphered the order in which primary minerals (i.e., olivine, pyroxenes, and plagioclase) could have formed as exoplanets first solidified. Understanding the mineralogy of planetary bodies gives insight into the geologic history of processes that cannot be seen, because they are no longer occurring, or even of planets that are difficult to find.
ContributorsJacob, Samantha Renee (Author) / Bell Iii, James F (Thesis advisor) / Till, Christy B (Committee member) / Desch, Steven J (Committee member) / Robinson, Mark S (Committee member) / Williams, David A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Undersea scientific ocean exploration and research only began in earnest approximately150 years ago. Much has been learned and discovered in that time, but there are also gaps in understanding of the ocean depths. One source of the knowledge gap is the relative lack of crewed exploration in some regions of the ocean. This work presents a vehicle that provides divers with longer time at deeper depths than is currently available in an unpressurized environment, reduces diver workload, and improves situational awareness. Working in collaboration with the scientific diver community, top-level requirements were defined, and a Concept of Operations was developed. This effort is followed up with a vehicle design which provides the capability for two divers to complete unpressurized dives to 200 meters, remain there for 20 minutes, and return to the surface within 12 hours. Additional functionality provided by the vehicle includes significant cargo capacity, voice and data communication with the surface, geolocation capabilities, and automated maneuvering and decompression management. Analysis of the hull shape and propulsion system is presented which demonstrates that the vehicle can reach its velocity and acceleration performance requirements. A virtual environment is then presented which has the potential to allow for end-to-end mission performance evaluation. Finally, the constraints on the life support system are discussed and source code for a simulation is presented. The final chapter of this work examines a hypothetical mission to 200 meters depth. The various phases of the mission are discussed as well as the potential consumption of both oxygen and electricity. Two life support gas mixtures are examined, and the resulting decompression profiles are presented. The final analysis shows that it is possible to conduct dives to 200 meters, perform 20 minutes of work, and return to the surface within 12 hours using the CUTLASS vehicle that is presented.
ContributorsBennett, Kirk (Author) / Scowen, Paul A (Thesis advisor) / Butler, Nathaniel R (Thesis advisor) / Robinson, Mark S (Committee member) / Groppi, Christopher E (Committee member) / Bryan, Sean A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Anthropogenic activities have had a profound effect on ecosystems, sediment budgets, and dust emissions stemming from widespread changes in land use and land cover and increases in sediment disturbance. Sandy coastal environments are under increasing pressure from the impacts of rising sea levels, coastal flooding, and erosion. Coastal foredunes can serve as a buffer to protect coastal communities from the impacts of coastal erosion, flooding, and sea-level rise. They also serve an important role as an ecosystem service, providing opportunities for recreation (off-highway vehicle, hiking, tourism) and habitat for native and endemic biota. Increased disturbance and pressure by human activity within the beach-dune system can lead to a decoupling of form and function from natural geomorphic and biotic processes. Dune management and restoration is often employed to mitigate some of the aforementioned pressures. Dynamic or ‘nature-based’ restoration aims to restore the form and function of a geomorphic system and improve landform resilience to external pressures by employing complimentary native plant species. This type of approach places emphasis on the ecological and geomorphic interactions within a landscape to improve the overall function and resiliency of the system to external pressures. Two case studies along the coast of California, the Lanphere Dunes and Oceano Dunes, provide uniquely different approaches to foredune restoration and the corresponding issues of landscape management for various goals. The case studies provided employ a suite of close-range remote sensing techniques, including kite aerial photography, uncrewed aerial systems photography, and terrestrial laser scanning, to generate high resolution (< 0.1 m) products (surface models; orthophoto mosaics in red-green-blue (RGB) and multispectral) to quantify and inform on restoration efforts by examining sediment budget and vegetation characteristics over a mesoscale (spatial and temporal). Results were compared to a variety of control sites (e.g., no restoration, natively vegetated, invasively vegetated) to highlight the differences between restored and unrestored landscapes, and the efficacy of restoration efforts for improving the developmental trajectory of a landscape towards a "desired" state.
ContributorsHilgendorf, Zach (Author) / Walker, Ian J (Thesis advisor) / Dorn, Ronald I (Committee member) / Schmeeckle, Mark W (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Space weathering of planetary surfaces is a complex process involving many mechanisms that work independently over different timescales. This research aims to address outstanding questions related to solar wind rim formation on space weathered regolith and tests a new hypothesis that dielectric breakdown plays an important role in the optical maturation of lunar regolith. The purpose of this work is to highlight the limitations imposed by laboratory equipment to accurately simulate the solar wind’s effects on regolith and to provide physical context for the possible contributions of dielectric breakdown to space weathering. Terrestrial and lunar samples were experimentally irradiated and damage was characterized using electron microscopy techniques. Low-fluence proton irradiation produced differential weathering in a lunar mare basalt, with radiation damage on some phases being inconsistent with that found in the natural lunar environment. Dielectric breakdown of silicates revealed two electrical processes that produce characteristic surface and subsurface damage, in addition to amorphous rims. The results of this research highlight experimental parameters that if ignored, can significantly affect the results and interpretations of simulated solar wind weathering, and provides a framework for advancing space weathering research through experimental studies.
ContributorsShusterman, Morgan (Author) / Robinson, Mark S (Thesis advisor) / Sharp, Thomas G (Thesis advisor) / Hibbits, Charles (Committee member) / Bose, Maitrayee (Committee member) / Semken, Steven (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Both volcanic and tectonic landforms are surface expressions of the inner workings of a planet. On Earth, volcanism and crustal deformation are primarily surface expressions of plate tectonics. In contrast, the lunar crust has been deformed by solely endogenic processes following large impact events.The Procellarum KREEP (potassium (K), rare earth elements (REE), and phosphorus (P)) Terrane (PKT) is a thermally and chemically distinct geologic province on the Moon. Despite the wealth of remote sensing data, the origin and evolution of the PKT is poorly understood. This study focuses on floor-fractured craters and silicic magma genesis within the PKT.
First, I present a detailed study of floor-fractured craters, including morphometric measurements using topographic datasets from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), variations in temporal heat flow, lithospheric rheology and the locations of floor-fractured craters relative to impact basins. The overarching conclusion is viscous relaxation and magmatic intrusion are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as has been argued in earlier studies. This work also provides new evidence for the existence of the putative Procellarum basin.
Next, with rhyolite-MELTS modeling, I demonstrate that fractional crystallization of KREEP basalt magmas is a plausible mechanism for generating silicic melts. The results suggest that following crystallization, the composition of the remaining ~30 wt.% liquids are consistent with returned lunar silicic fragments.
Finally, using crater counting methods I tested the stratigraphic relationship between the floor-fractured crater, Hansteen, and the silicic volcanic landform, Mons Hansteen. Absolute model ages (AMAs) suggest that the basalts on the floor of Hansteen crater formed contemporaneously with Mons Hansteen, implying that bimodal volcanism might have played a role in silicic magma genesis on the Moon.
ContributorsRavi, Srinidhi (Author) / Robinson, Mark S (Thesis advisor) / Till, Christy B (Committee member) / Watters, Thomas R (Committee member) / Whipple, Kelin X (Committee member) / O'Rourke, Joseph G (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023